Rollcentre looking good

Joao Barbosa set a best time of 3m39.260s early in the third hour of yesterday's (Wednesday) qualifying session, just 4.577s off Allan McNish's fastest time. Barbosa, along with co-drivers Short and Rob Barff, steered the Dallara-Judd to fifth in both Sebring and Monza's 1000kms race, and is among the favourites to finish as best of the rest behind the all-conquering quartet of Audi R8s.

"If there weren't any Audis we'd be third on the grid, which is quite an achievement," said Short. "We've changed to the race engine for today's qualifying, but we might have a go at improving. The biggest surprise is that the Zytek didn't set a really fast time. But we'll be focusing even more on race preparation in second qualifying, so I wouldn't be surprised to lose a few spots."

"The biggest smile on my face is for all the people who said we had bitten off more then we could chew by running this car at Le Mans. We've come here as a club team, taken what we have learned at that level and put it into practice to good effect."

"The car is running really well," said Barbosa after qualifying. "The lap wasn't perfect, but we did some good work early in the session to fine tune the car. We were looking more to having a good race setup rather than going all out in qualifying."

The team has rebuilt its car to race spec since yesterday's qualifying session, including switching to the race-spec four-litre Judd engine, although should track conditions be suitable and the early stages of the qualifying session goes to plan an attempt to improve on the time wasn't ruled out.